


A Long Way Back to the Light

by mistresscurvy



Category: God's Own Country (2017)
Genre: Canon-typical language, Getting Together, M/M, Switching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28143372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistresscurvy/pseuds/mistresscurvy
Summary: The son is going to be a problem.
Relationships: Gheorghe Ionescu/Johnny Saxby
Comments: 40
Kudos: 203
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Long Way Back to the Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nestra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nestra/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I was so excited when I got matched on this fandom, and I loved writing this story - I hope you enjoy it. <3 
> 
> Thank you to my betas, to be named at a later date! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

The son is going to be a problem. 

Not for Gheorghe; he won't be there long enough to become a main target, and based on the first morning Johnny will be too busy directing his rage at his father to refocus it elsewhere. Gheorghe is very good at staying out of the crossfire. But there's a powderkeg underneath this farmhouse, and Johnny is doing everything in his power to ignite a spark.

Gheorghe doesn't suck up to Martin or Deirdre, or try to make himself look good by comparison. He may not be hungover or deliberately caustic, but he's also a labourer and a foreigner. Neither Martin nor Deirdre intentionally provokes him like Johnny does, and he has no intention of giving them cause. 

He's here for a job, and he's grateful enough to be outside with sheep for the time being rather than still on a bus or searching for a stopgap before Scotland. If he's going to be alone, at least he's doing a job that he knows and likes. This farm won't last many more seasons from the looks of Johnny and his father, but Gheorghe can at least get the year's lambing done.

The sheep, of course, know what they're doing and what they need. It is easy to lose himself in the rhythm of the work, the constant, neverending tasks of early spring. He might have needed to be more careful in the house or the barn, but up on the hilltop, the sky wide above him, there is nothing to be uncertain of. 

*

He can feel Johnny's eyes on him. 

It's a prickle at the back of his neck, a similar yet distinct sensation from the way that most Englishmen look at him. He's not sure whether anyone looked at him like this while Tomas was still around; he might not have noticed. But it's impossible to ignore Johnny's attention. 

He wonders if Johnny is always so obvious, and how accurate his aim is. When Gheorghe decides to catch him at his glance, there's always a faint sense of bewilderment beneath the challenge. 

Usually, there's a chore that distracts Johnny: a fence to mend, or a lamb to catch, or a hot kettle to be dealt with. But in those moments when there isn't, Gheorghe can see something change on Johnny's face just before he looks away. He finds himself attempting to hold Johnny's attention for long enough to see it, keeping as still as possible, trying not to spook him. Half the time it works; the other half, Johnny calls him lazy or insults his English, which Gheorghe did not need Deirdre to tell him is very good. 

*

There are many things Gheorghe will withstand for a job, but suffering abuse from a boy pretending to be a man is not one of them. When Johnny calls him that name one too many times, he does not hesitate to make good on his threat from the first night. And he is certain that Johnny understands who he is dealing with now, even if he is clearly unwilling to admit to so much else.

Whether Johnny understands anything else about himself in that moment should not be Gheorghe's business, but he wonders. 

He doesn't allow himself to be disappointed by Johnny forcing the issue. When he feels Johnny's eyes on him again, he tries to feel surprised. 

*

Spite can kill a man as easily as neglect or error. 

The cut on Johnny's hand isn't bad, but it could have been. Gheorghe acts before he can think, before Johnny can let this wound fester like every other one he's been nursing. He would do it for anyone, he tells himself, but he also knows that most people wouldn't need him to. Most people would have taken the gloves his nan had given him. 

_You've got two lambs you're trying to raise,_ Gheorghe can hear Tomas saying to him. _The both of them runts._ But it's a Yorkshire lilt in his head now, rather than Romanian. 

He waits to see whether Johnny will press his luck and say that word again, or make a clever comment about Gheorghe's little shadow. It doesn't come, though; Johnny is quiet while he works and as he eats his pot noodle, and Gheorghe doesn't need to fill the air with his own chatter. A silence is only awkward if someone should be saying something. He keeps his own company. 

He's content enough glancing over at Johnny, at the way the light from the fire sharpens the angles of his face. Like a relief cut out of stone. 

*

The sky is pale and almost colourless when Gheorghe gets up to piss. The countryside isn't awake yet and the stillness is all encompassing, almost deafening. 

Johnny's steps are loud in the silence, his intent as obvious as the hand down the front of his trousers. It's too early for this bullshit, Gheorghe almost says, but Johnny's hands are on him before he can decide whether to speak. 

There's strength in Johnny's wiry frame, the grip of his hands tight and desperate. But Gheorghe has the weight advantage. He's almost caught out when the tenor of their grappling shifts, but even then it's easy enough to make it clear to Johnny that he's not about to get fucked in the mud. 

He's blindsided when Johnny starts to blow him instead, messy and fast and absolutely ravenous. Johnny's hand is firm around Gheorghe's wrist, and Gheorghe pants up at the clouds overhead, the hint of dawn shimmering around the edges. Johnny never looks up, bobbing up and down; his mouth is hot and wet and demanding, and Gheorghe comes without warning. 

Johnny spits it out into the mud and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. Gheorghe watches, transfixed, as Johnny kneels up and begins to wank, his hand rough over the foreskin. His eyes flick up at Gheorghe and then back down at his dick, and Gheorghe wonders if he should offer to help, or if Johnny is planning to come on his chest. 

Instead, Johnny grunts and hunches over so that he comes on the mud, his chest shaking. Gheorghe wants to reach out and touch him, wants to see if he feels warm in the sharp spring air. But he simply watches as Johnny spits again onto the ground and then shuffles to his feet. 

"Come on, it's fucking freezing out here," he says, and walks back to the shelter without waiting to see if Gheorghe will follow him. He does. 

* 

When they wake up for real a few hours later, Gheorghe waits for Johnny to say something. What, he's not sure. Or maybe he just likes looking at his face. All of his emotions are visible there, as clear as day. 

Johnny rebuffs any offered kindness, whether a pair of gloves or a bit of conversation, but he snatches up what isn't offered and then gives something unexpected in return, a cup of tea or a drag off a roll-up to pass the evening. Gheorghe sees what Johnny's face does when he forgets someone else can see him, how young he looks. It makes him feel off-kilter, watching Johnny's learned defiance war with his instincts. 

Still, he doesn't push Johnny until the following night, and Johnny still doesn't speak even when Gheorghe strokes his hand down Johnny's shoulder. But his intentions are obvious when he turns to face Gheorghe, his advances clumsy and grasping. He's so easy to dissuade, in the end, his body reacting before his mind does every time Gheorghe catches his hand and draws it away from his dick and toward his face. He never wants to forget that it's Johnny's face and mouth and body he's touching, and he won't let Johnny forget it, either. 

He gets his hand around Johnny's dick for the first time while his tongue's still in Johnny's mouth, their breath mingling as he fondles him and learns his body. The cut on the palm of Johnny's hand scratches over Gheorghe's shoulder and down his back, and he begins to mimic Johnny's rough motion on his dick. He slows down when Johnny's hips start to snap up, pulling away and smiling when Johnny whines in protest. 

"Cunt," Johnny says, mouth twisted up but eyes outrageously soft. Gheorghe wanks just the head of his dick in response, foreskin slipping easily in his grasp, before he changes his mind and leans over to suck him. "Oh, fuck me." 

Johnny's hands are surprisingly gentle in his hair, constantly moving as Gheorghe takes him down, the taste of his dick bitter and delicious. Gheorghe wants to crack him open, wants to make him as desperate for Gheorghe's touch as Gheorghe is to touch him. He wants a lot of things, but he will take the hot pulse of come in his mouth and the moans in his ears. 

He kisses his way up Johnny's body and tucks his face against his neck, breathing deeply as he ruts against Johnny's belly. He's burning up against Johnny, his sweat slicking the path of his dick, and he gets his hands on Johnny's hips and holds on tight while he thrusts against him. It doesn't take long before he's jerking against Johnny's skin and coming, both of them filthy now. 

Gheorghe presses a kiss behind Johnny's ear and slides his dick over the mess on Johnny's stomach. "Doesn't smell like piss in here anymore." 

"Yeah, spunk's much better," Johnny says, rolling his eyes as he pushes Gheorghe away, but he's right. It is.

*

Suddenly, the days are too short. There's not enough time to get the work in and get his fill of Johnny. Gheorghe takes his cues from him, and lets himself float in the space they carve out together.

He also lets himself touch Johnny, and taste him. Johnny tastes of this land; Gheorghe does not need to ask whether he ever wishes he moved down south with his mother. Even when he was a small boy, Johnny was like the old grandmothers of Gheorghe's village. He learns this every time he licks Johnny's skin, with Johnny's eyes hot on him. 

When he goes too deep, Johnny asks him questions, their meaning opaque, but Gheorghe lets him drill down, looking for the lode. 

"Do you like football?" Johnny's face is soft and pensive.

Gheorghe shrugs. "Sure. Do you?"

Johnny does something between a nod and a head shake. "It's alright, like. I played it when I was younger, but everyone did."

"I always played in goal," Gheorghe says, and waits until Johnny looks down at him to smile and deliver the punchline. "I was not very good." 

"Well, that's just it," Johnny says, as if it's self-explanatory, and Gheorghe nods and goes back to licking Johnny's armpit, the salt and tang there. Johnny takes a deep breath and lets it out, his hand drifting to the back of Gheorghe's neck.

* 

When they come back down, Gheorghe does not have expectations.

Or he wouldn't, if Johnny didn't all but proclaim him as his own, his body language and nervous energy as easy to read as a book. It has been a very long time since Gheorghe felt like a teenager, but he does now as he waits for Deirdre to go to bed. 

He pushes back against Johnny's insistence that they fuck in the house, and pushes forward into Johnny's space when he finally arrives in the caravan, petulance in tow. It's a game they're playing each step of the way, and this time when Johnny tries to push him over onto his belly, Gheorghe goes, his blood thrumming through his body. Johnny throws a condom down on the tiny bed, and Gheorghe exhales sharply.

Johnny's hands are firm as they stroke down his back, and he tugs Gheorghe onto his side so that he can tuck himself behind. Gheorghe hears him spit into his hand, and a second later he feels the pressure of his fingers against his arsehole. He lets out a slow breath as Johnny presses one finger in, and bears down on it. Johnny kisses the back of his neck and adds another finger, less tentative now. 

By the time Johnny fucks inside, Gheorghe is panting, short little gasps on every thrust. Johnny's breath is ragged against his ear, his fingers tight around Gheorghe's hip when he grinds his dick in deep. Gheorghe pushes his face against the thin pillow, his mouth open, and he jerks himself in time with Johnny's rhythm. 

He comes too quickly, but Johnny is right behind him, his hips stuttering as he lets out a high-pitched, breathy moan. It shouldn't be this easy, but Johnny pulls out and peels off the condom and drops it on the floor before pushing back into Gheorghe's space and kissing him. It shouldn't be, but it is. 

It might stay this easy, countless days of work together and nights of fucking and blow jobs and eating Johnny out, making him moan from his tongue. But it doesn't.

Gheorghe sits in the hospital and waits. 

*

Driving back to the farm, Johnny doesn't look at him as he says, "Nan's staying at hospital tonight." Gheorghe nods, and thinks about putting his hand on Johnny's thigh. His hands stay in his lap.

It isn't easy when they get back to the house and Johnny heads for his room, knowing that Gheorghe will follow. But it is simple, the most straightforward thing in the world, to kiss Johnny, to nudge him toward his bed, to push him down onto his back. It feels utterly natural to get him naked and kneel between his legs, hands sweeping up and down Johnny's inner thighs and caressing the soft, pale skin there. 

He could have done that for hours, and traced Johnny’s entire body with his tongue, but Johnny's hands pull him up over him. "Come on and fuck me," he says, nothing uncertain in his voice, and Gheorghe nods against his neck.

He watches Johnny's face as he slowly, slowly presses inside, the color rising up his cheeks. "Breathe," he says softly, running his hand over Johnny's chest and down his belly. Johnny inhales then, and Gheorghe slides in a little more. He has trouble breathing himself, transfixed by Johnny making room for him. When his hips are flush against Johnny's arse, he tucks his face under Johnny's jaw and licks him there. 

"I'm breathing, alright," Johnny complains in his ear, and Gheorghe huffs against his neck and begins to fuck him. 

Johnny pulls him in tighter on every thrust, and Gheorghe wants to be impossibly deep inside him. If he could, he would burrow all the way into Johnny, go so deep he could touch not only his skin but every part of him. Johnny cries out each time he slams forward, a nasal exhalation that Gheorghe will hear in his dreams. Gheorghe gives him everything he has, bracing himself up to get better leverage and give Johnny room to get a hand on his dick. Their rhythm skips out of sync as they both chase it, like a train shuddering and jerking just before it goes off the track. 

He feels Johnny come from the inside first, the tight spasms around him as he drives forward through it. His hips piston faster and faster until finally he comes, pressed as far inside as he can go. 

He could have been gentle tonight, or soft. But he feels the way Johnny's fingers dig into his back. He's soft enough when Johnny falls asleep against him. 

*

It continues to be simple, if not easy, until it's not. 

*

Scotland is exactly what he expects it to be, nothing more and nothing less. 

Stefan, who got him the job, looks out for him initially, but Gheorghe is very good at making people believe that he doesn't need their help. It's even true, most of the time. Right now he needs monotony and the sound of machinery loud enough to drown out any stray thoughts. Once he has sanded down the part of his brain that remembers the sound of Johnny's voice, he will see about living rather than just surviving. For now, it is enough. 

When he sees Johnny again, it's like hearing a record skip. The sight is incongruous, a figure that should exist only in the liminal space of his dreams. 

He wouldn't feel this angry if it was a dream, though.

None of what Johnny says is enough until suddenly it is, until the choice is no longer between staying or going but between existing and living. 

*

He helps Johnny put the inside of the caravan back to rights, as much as they can. 

"A bit dramatic, don't you think?" he says lightly, and Johnny rolls his eyes and shoves his hands under his armpits. Once the bed is more or less structurally sound again, he kicks Johnny in the ankle. "What do you say, one last fuck out here?"

"Shut up," Johnny grumbles, but Gheorghe can still hear the smile in his voice. 

"Fine, we'll save it for the house," Gheorghe says. "Deirdre will be scandalised." 

"She won't."

"Oh?" Gheorghe feigns surprise. 

"She--she knows why I went up there. Dad, too." 

Gheorghe smiles. "And why was that?" 

"Oh, fuck off," Johnny says, the grin finally breaking through as he pushes Gheorghe in the chest. 

*

He watches as they take the caravan away. Then he takes a deep breath, and steps inside.


End file.
